Steve Whysall in front of Big Ben centrepiece at Philadelphia Flower Show

Wow, what a difference a day makes. There was still a lot of work to do when I wandered around the Philadelphia Flower Show on Thursday.

By Friday, so much more work had been done, giving the show a much more impeccable overall look with a crispness and attention to detail comparable to major exhibits at Chelsea, the world’s classiest garden show.

One of the sumptuous floral arrangements at the Philadelphia Flower Show.

The decision to go with a Best of British theme with the accent on the word Brilliant was made by the show organizers more than a year ago when they were gathered in a pub in the Marylebone district of London.

Table decoration at Philadelphia Flower Show.

Once it was decided, all the participating landscape companies, garden clubs, florist and floral designs got behind the theme and started to interpret it with enthusiastic creativity.

Big Ben at Philadelphia Flower Show.

At the centre, the giant Big Ben clock tower pumped excitement, energy and vitality into the show with a London Olympics-style video montage with many familiar stars of British music and TV from the Beatles (All Your Need is Love) to Benny Hill, Monty Python, Mr. Bean and David Bowie.

It may not have been a tribute to British plant hunters or celebrity hybridizers or famed gardeners past and present (it could have been) but it did give the show a new sound and a burst of life and it was a thrill and a pleasant upbeat change of pace to see the stylishly crafted video flashing out its message on the giant clock face about “brilliant” British humour and music.

One thing the Philadelphia show does very well – something Seattle and even Chelsea could learn from – is incorporating floral art and design and the excellence of specialty gardeners into the mix.

White table centrepiece

There is a whole section devoted to floral art and a stage where designers and floral artists demonstrate how they work their magic. This is obviously a popular feature, primarily because the floral art displays are all visually sumptuous.

Hamilton Horticourt.

In the Hamilton Horticourt – named after the $1 million-benefactor Mrs. Samuel M.V. Hamilton – more than 5,800 top notch individual plants grown by amateur gardeners are exhibited.

They range from exotic and tender to rare and unusual, from gigantic pots of clivia and amaryllis in peak bloom to begonia, myrtle topiary, pachystachys and much more.

One of my favourite displays featured a row of potted crocuses. It is something I will definitely be doing and promoting in the fall. These crocus pots had an irresistible simplicity and charm.

Orchids are a big part of the show, as they are in Seattle, less so at Chelsea, but much more engaging at this show was a garden built to show a plant hunter collecting orchids growing into fig trees in South America and boxing them to send back to England.

The display has the power to engage the imagination of all ages with the transcendent beauty of the orchids themselves and the history lesson about the challenges of plant exploration.

I found the Sherlock Holmes garden and what a smart installation it is, teaching in the most creative way about the dangers of invasive plants and the risks of careless plant introduction.

The Jack the Ripper display turned out to be a lot more artistic than gruesome. The designers used spiky sanseveria poking up with dozens of blood red roses dripping down to create one theatrical display.

Another featured a bed of thorns surrounded by hundreds of deep red roses packed into a cushioned-wall effect.

The overall impact of these and other similar artistic treatments of the theme came across as a little weird but more art than anarchy and a more fun highlight than botanical horror show. Pleased to say.

Steve Whysall with Raymond Evison at the Philadelphia Flower Show.

I got to chat with Raymond Evison at his clematis display. He tells me he assembled the whole thing by himself, flying into Philly on Monday and working on the display for four days. Quite an achievement. That is a lot of work. It looks fantastic.

Steve Whysall in front of Big Ben centrepiece at Philadelphia Flower Show

Evison told me he won’t be holding his breath waiting for approval to produce a new clematis to mark the occasion of the birth of the royal baby. But he will be introducing a new clematis to mark Chelsea Flower Show’s 100th anniversary this May. More about all of this later.

I have yet tour the marketplace. I am going to do that tomorrow. I went back to Reading Terminal Market for lunch. What a vibrant place this is. Makes me think Granville Island could expand itself to become more like this extraordinarily successful food market.

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